


Take Two Tablets and Stay in Bed

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [54]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lester is feeling ill and Lyle ends up playing nursemaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Two Tablets and Stay in Bed

Jon Lyle stepped out of the shower, rubbing at his dark hair with a towel. He’d come off shift at 3pm and only had a couple of hours to go until he could drag his lover away from his office for the weekend.

They planned to drive down to the cottage in Somerset which Lester owned jointly with his brother Ralph, intending to spend a peaceful weekend slobbed out and doing nothing more strenuous for once than making love and walking to the pub for a beer. The weather had been piss-wet all week, which had proved a hindrance on the two shouts the team been called out on, but for once nobody had been injured and all displaced dinosaurs had been successfully repatriated. But the constant rain would make most underground trips unpleasant and, from the sniffles he’d heard over breakfast, it sounded very much like Lester was coming down with a cold.

Lyle dressed with customary rapidity, pulling on underwear and jeans, then dragging a teeshirt and a sweater over his wet hair. Civvies made a nice change from combat gear and served as a pleasant reminder that he was now off duty.

A mug of coffee and a chocolate biscuit in the recreation room was the next things on his agenda.

He pulled open the door and almost walked straight into Lorraine Wickes, Lester’s ever-efficient secretary.

“Lieutenant Lyle, just the person I was looking for.”

“I left my report on your desk,” he grinned.

She smiled. “I know you did. That wasn’t why I wanted you.” For a moment she looked slightly uncertain, which wasn’t an expression Lyle had ever associated with her. “Sir James looks absolutely dreadful, but I can’t seem to convince him that we can manage without him for the rest of the day.”

Lyle sighed. He hadn’t seen his lover since an early morning meeting in one of the conference rooms and Lester hadn’t seemed too bad at that point in the day, although his tolerance for Cutter had been at a lower ebb than usual. From what Lorraine had just said, matters clearly hadn’t improved.

He nodded and followed Lorraine back to her office. Through the open door into the inner sanctum he could see Lester sitting in his chair staring at a pile of papers on the desk with unaccustomed blankness.

“You look bloody awful,” said Lyle, without preamble. “Come on, the car’s already packed. We can be at the cottage before the rush hour starts if you get a move on.”

Lester waved a hand ineffectually at the files open on his desk. “I can’t leave this lot, Jon.”

“Bollocks. There’s nothing here that won’t keep. Lorraine is more than capable of holding the fort and you know it.”

Lester pushed his chair back from the desk and to Lyle’s amazement he didn’t appear to be intending to put up a fight, which immediately spoke volumes for how bad he was really feeling.

Loraine appeared in the doorway, smiling with relief. “I’ll deal with the out of office on your email, Sir James. If anything comes up that needs your attention I’ll ring you, I promise.”

Lester nodded and, with as much dignity as he could muster for a man who looked dead on his feet, he followed Lyle down to the garage, depositing his briefcase into the boot of his Mercedes, alongside a weekend’s worth of food packed into cooler bags. Without a word he handed the keys to Lyle and slid into the passenger seat.

For once Lyle felt no impulse towards sarcasm on the subject of car privileges. He’d never seen Lester look as washed out as this, not even the day after their underground extravaganza in the Devil’s Crowll. It looked very much like he’d succumbed to the same flu bug that had laid half of the science team low for the past week. This was certainly more than a simple cold.

Lyle managed to reach the motorway before the traffic built up in the Friday rush. Beside him Lester had slid into a shallow sleep, punctuated by the occasional quiet snore. They reached the cottage just as darkness was falling.

“Wakey wakey,” Lyle murmured, giving Lester’s arm a gentle shake.

Lester grunted and managed to drag himself out of the car, but as soon as the warmth of the car was replaced by the cold, damp evening air Lyle could see that he was shivering violently.

The first priority was to get some warmth into the cottage and in a matter of minutes Lyle had a fire going strongly in the wood-burning stove and a kettle on to boil before he went up to turn the heating on in the bedroom and switch on the electric blanket. By the time he got back downstairs Lester had shed his suit jacket over the back of a chair and was sprawled out on the sofa in front of the fire, looking pale and listless, a blanket pulled around him.

“One hot honey, lemon and whisky with added paracetemol coming up,” Lyle announced. “Ditzy swears by them.”

Lester managed a tired grin. “Ditzy swears at most things, or wasn’t that what you meant?” He did his best to sit upright, the grin rapidly turning to a grimace. “Sorry I’m so bloody useless, Jon, but I honestly can’t remember when I last felt this bad.”

Lyle went down on one knee next to the sofa and pressed a light kiss to his lover’s clammy forehead. “Forget it, sweetie, I don’t often get chance to fuss around you, so I intend to make the most of it.” He tucked the blanket around Lester, and swopped his shoes for a pair of dilapidated slippers, then busied himself in the kitchen.

An hour later, Lyle decreed the bedroom warm enough for human habitation and bundled Lester upstairs and into bed, with a promise of soup and another hot whisky to follow. The alcohol was received with marginally more enthusiasm than the soup, but Lester managed to swallow what Lyle put in front of him, including a couple of slices of bread and eventually Lyle declared himself satisfied and left Lester in peace to doze off while he made a simple meal of pasta and sauce for himself.

By the time he went back upstairs, Lester was curled on his side, the quilt tucked up under his chin, dark hair in disarray on the pillow, obviously asleep.

Lyle stripped quickly, turned off the electric blanket and spooned around his lover in a careful embrace. Lester grunted and shuffled back against him, his arse pressed up against Lyle’s groin in a way that would ordinarily have been arousing. But after pressing a light kiss to one shoulder, Lyle followed Lester into sleep.

* * * * *

“I’m sick of staring at these four walls,” grumbled Lester on Sunday afternoon. He’d spent almost all the previous day and most of that morning drifting in and out of sleep. Eventually the flu, or whatever it was, had started to recede. But he still felt as weak as a kitten, and his nose remained obstinately blocked, making breathing difficult. Frustration was now starting to set in, which was probably another sign that he was shaking off the bug, although the jury was still out on whether he’d feel up to a return to the ARC on Monday morning.

Lyle stared down at him with an expression of amused tolerance on his face. “Sweetie, be reasonable, you were fucking knackered after a trip to the bathroom and a shower this morning. You’re hardly up to a visit to the pub.”

“Maybe not, but I can lie on the sofa and read a book. And I think I might fancy a coffee now.” He made what he hoped was a good attempt at puppy dog eyes. Lyle had been surprisingly amenable to waiting on him hand, foot and finger, as his mother used to describe it.

“Dressing gown and slippers,” Lyle told him. “I’m not having you get another cold.”

Lester sniffed. “I think that’s passed off,” he lied. “My throat’s not so sore now, either. I heard you talking to Ditzy this morning. What’s he prescribed?”

“A couple of days complete rest, amongst other things. So don’t even think of going back in to work tomorrow. Half of the technicians are now laid up with the same thing, so he says he doesn’t want your germs floating around the place adding to the primordial stew. Stringer says he’ll take my shift for me, so no worries there.”

Lester couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a sick day, but the thought of the drive back up to the ARC early the following morning held very little appeal, so for once in his life he was not inclined to argue. That view was reinforced by the walk downstairs, which left him feeling as shaky as a new-born foal, a fact that Lyle, with unusual tact, refrained from commenting on.

The heat from the wood-burning stove was pleasant, and so was the sight of Lyle, stretched out on the floor on the thick rug in front of the inglenook fireplace, propped up on his elbows reading a book. His lover’s face was flushed from the heat and his teeshirt had rucked up, displaying a thin strip of skin between it and the top of his jeans. Under other circumstances Lester would have joined him, running first his fingers, then his tongue along that tantalising strip of flesh, but although his mind was willing, his flesh was definitely weak.

“Take your teeshirt off, Jon,” he murmured, putting his book down and staring admiringly at Lyle’s muscular shoulders.

Lyle shot him a quick grin. “What part of complete rest didn’t you understand?”

“I never said I was going to do anything more strenuous than watch.” Lester settled himself back against the cushions, a speculative smile playing on his lips.

The soldier sat up in a smooth movement that bore witness to several hundred sit-ups a day and pulled the teeshirt off over his head. “Now can I go back to reading my book?”

“For the moment,” Lester acknowledged, taking in the sight of tanned skin and taut muscle.

A light tracing of scars criss-crossed Lyle’s back, almost faded now, as were the marks from the barbed wire that had been used to restrain his arms; the legacy of a recent operation not involving dinosaurs that had turned into what Lyle had eloquently described as a total cluster-fuck. Lester still had no idea of the details, but whatever had happened had driven Lyle out of his bed for nearly two weeks and had created a gulf between them that had taken time and effort to bridge. It had been Lester’s first experience of the harsh reality that surrounded an attachment to a Special Forces soldier, and he knew it wouldn’t be his last.

“Stop thinking about it, James,” said Lyle, quietly but firmly. “I have. I’m sorry I let it come between us, but I’m over it now.” He rolled over onto his back and thumbed open the button on his jeans, easing the pressure on a very definite bulge in the denim.

With a graceful shimmy, Lyle pushed his jeans down over his hips, dragging his underwear off with them and depositing the lot, including his socks, onto the grey limestone flags that made up the floor of the cottage. He sprawled out on his side, propped up on one elbow, facing Lester, his cock already half-hard.

Lester’s breath caught in his throat. The sight of Lyle’s body never failed to excite his own interest and now was no exception to that rule. The soldier was strong, but not muscle-bound and was unselfconscious of his nakedness. His cock rose out of the tangle of dark hair at his groin, hardening visibly under Lester’s gaze.

Lyle gave a soft laugh and relaxed back onto the rug bringing his hand up to tease at his cock, starting to put on the show that Lester had hoped for. Lyle took it slowly, letting his hand drift lazily up and down his own flesh, eyes closed, head tilted back displaying the long line of his throat. Lester wished he had the energy to get down on the floor beside him, licking and kissing his way along the stubbled jaw, but that would have to wait until his legs didn’t feel like jelly.

Lyle opened his eyes and gave Lester a quick grin. “I’m not going to last long.”

“Fast as you like, sweetheart,” Lester said, returning the grin, slipping his hand inside his dressing-gown and bringing his own cock to full hardness.

His lover’s fingers were moving faster now, twisting slightly on the upstroke, gathering the moisture beading at the tip of his cock. Moments later, with a soft gasp, Lyle came, thick, creamy fluid splashing across his tanned stomach and landing in a light smattering of dark hair. Lyle looked up at him, relaxed and comfortable as he milked the last drops from his body. Then he rolled over onto his knees, ignoring the mess on his stomach, as he leaned forward to nuzzle at Lester’s cock.

To his surprise, Lester was drawn quickly to the edge of climax by Lyle’s skilled mouth working at his cock. He was breathing hard now, his stuffed-up nose clearing properly for the first time in nearly three days. His lover’s tongue swirled around his sensitive skin and flicked at the tight ridge on the underside. His hands tightened in Lyle’s short hair and he came in his lover’s mouth.

Lyle sat back on his heels, running his tongue around swollen lips. “Bet that’s cleared your nose.”

Lester arched one eyebrow. “It has, actually. How did you know?”

“Ditzy always prescribes a wank if someone’s complaining of a blocked nose. He claims it’s something to do with the blood vessels dilating.” Lyle looked amused. “The trouble is the bugger seems to be right about it. I’ve tried it a couple of times and it never fails.”

Lester leaned back against the cushions, laughing weakly. “I’ll never view Cutter and his daffodil allergy in quite the same way again. Thank you for that mental image, Jon. So that was what the inestimable Lieutenant Owen meant by a couple of days rest and ‘other things’, was it?”

Lyle’s grin was answer enough.

“Well, his prescribing habits are certainly unorthodox,” Lester said. “But I prefer his suggestions to anything that NHS Direct are likely to dish out. And I rather think I might need a second dose of that particular medicine before I go to sleep tonight.”

Lyle rolled his eyes and settled down beside Lester. “I’ll remember that if I catch your lurgy, sweetie.”


End file.
